One of the coolest things about working at IBM is the global nature of our company.

Which is why the announcement of the new IBM Research - Africa (press release) is so cool. Of note is their focus on Smarter Cities. Specifically:

Smarter Cities – with initial focus on water and transportation: Rates of urbanization in Africa are the highest in the world.[1] The single biggest challenge facing African cities is improving access to and quality of city services such as water and transportation. IBM, in collaboration with government, industry and academia, plans to develop Intelligent Operation Centers for African cities – integrated command centers – that can encompass social and mobile computing, geo-spatial and visual analytics, and information models to enable smarter ways of managing city services. The initial focus will be on smarter water systems and traffic management solutions for the region.

I'm looking forward to seeing the work that our African IBM team is going to do in this space and can't wait to work with them on future projects.